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Episode 1: The Giant, The Bitch And The Intro
It was a peaceful day at the Sapphire City bank, which had conveniently been celebrating its 200th year of 'unblemished security.' Hundreds of civilians were lined up to conduct their business. The tellers and clerks scrambled to meet the demands of their important clients, and the whole scene was keeping itself in order. Without warning, a large grey man smashed his way through the bank's wall, and from his shoulder descended a scantily-clad red woman bearing the small horns and spaded tail of a classic devil. She demanded that all of the bank's customers surrender their valuables and drop to the ground, or else her large friend would make them comply. Blank Page, who had been among the civilians there on personal business, proceeded to turn invisible and hide behind a pillar. Selene Guest had been arguing with a clerk before the attack and was less than amused by the red woman's antics, so she stood up to confront her, producing a laser gun from her briefcase. From outside a thud ''was heard as Evine swung into action and fell a few inches short of clearing the bank's window, landing uncomfortably on the sill. The red woman began to hurl fireballs from her hands at the vigilantes who stood against her while Page attempted to herd some of the civilians out of the building. Just as she was beginning to have some success, Carrion and The Hellhound arrived from a nearby alleyway, sending the civilians back into a panic at the sight of another undead-looking creature. Boanna sank invisibly into the bank and continued to rally the civilians. Meanwhile, Maxwell Caulder had entered the scene and began to toy with his magic staff. During Evine and Selene's attempts to keep the woman busy, Carrion had landed an ineffective punch on the grey giant's leg which was countered with a blow so strong it knocked him unconscious and into the ground. Arnos, completely at a loss, contemplated digging a hole around the giant to keep him contained but instead threw rubble uselessly at his head. A second massive crash was heard as Angus 'The Uberjack' Henderson burst through the ceiling, magic axe in hand and kilt floating upward in the wind, giving the entire bank a view of his 'second' axe. The woman took notice of him and attempted to charm him, but was unable to break completely through his mental defenses. He battled the giant as well, only to find himself thrown across the room by a sweep of its giant arm. Selene took the time to try and read the thoughts of the giant with her telepathic bluetooth headset. When she reached his wavelength she found that he was being commanded by a Russian-sounding voice to steal the money and return to him, and that he had no thoughts of his own. By this time the battle had shown no signs of turning in her favor, and before she knew it the red woman had teleported toward her to plant a charming kiss on her lips and a similar one on Angus's. She introduced herself as Lily and ''popped ''off, leaving the grey giant to break through the bank's vault, steal a vast amount of money, and break back out the other side. Thoroughly defeated, the newly assembled heroes were made aware of another presence in the bank. A man in a black trenchcoat gathered them together and told them that he planned to throw a smoke bomb to empty out the bank of civilians. They disagreed, but when he did anyway they found themselves able to talk in private. After the civilians had left, he informed them he required their aid and ushered them out of the bank, taking the grounded zombie with them. When they reached a nearby alley the man introduced himself as Alexi Nezhizen, the son of an infamous necrocologist. Maxwell shocked Carrion back to consciousness with a spell, and each member of the group introduced themselves to the best of their ability. While Carrion could not remember where he came from, Evine and Arnos took the time to explain the origin of the Fey in the human world, which had begun with the Convergence ten years ago. They were a mixed group, ranging from centuries-old beings to young adults, but Alexi deemed them just the team he needed for his mission - to track down the grey giant, a creation of his father's, and put an end to his work. He told them that he could track the device that Selene found transmitting messages to the giant's head, but that the obvious footprints of the giant also indicated he'd headed into the woods. With his technical knowledge, Alexi explained he could develop a means of shutting down the radio transmission and freeing the giant from his father's orders. The team followed Alexi into the woods surrounding the city, but discovered they had been beaten there by a group of soldiers in pursuit of the same target. Alexi, not wanting to waste any time, broke away from the group and zapped one of the soldiers with the taser on his high-tech glove. The rest of the group followed suit to protect Alexi, and most of the soldiers ended up critically wounded or dead by the end of the scrap. Angus in particular refused to show mercy, but Boanna found the group's actions detestable and immediately set herself to healing the soldiers that were still alive. Before she could reach all of them Carrion had already begun to make a meal of one, and the group watched him in disgust. Leaving the living soldiers unconscious, the group continued to pursue the giant through the woods. The oversized footprints and Alexi's signal brought them to a clearing, where the giant was sitting on a hill, with squirrel in his hand and a sad air about him. When Selene read his mind this time, she discovered he had only simple, peaceful thoughts, that looked to her like they were drawn in crayon on his mind. They talked to him and he told them he didn't want to hurt anyone. He had been created with (a name I can't remember) to do violence, but he wanted to be Mungo, the peaceful and friendly giant. The group comforted him - Alexi treating him like a little brother - and then he scooped them all up into one big hug. Just as suddenly, his will left him again. He was compelled to leap off into the air faster than anyone could follow, carrying the bags of money along with him. The device Alexi developed shortly afterwards traced Mungo's signal to a local graveyard, and the group waited until nightfall to follow up on the lead. Alexi assumed his father had a secret laboratory there, where the mad necrocologist developed undead like Mungo. When they arrived on the scene the graveyard was silent, but further exploration triggered a horde of undead to rise from the ground and attack. Boanna made short work of a dozen or soof them with one blast of her banshee shriek, and the rest were quickly dispatched by Angus's axe. Boanna did not shy away from killing the undead, a fact that made Carrion uncomfortable. With those hindrances tackled the group was able to find the secret entrance to the lab hidden in one of the tombs, and they proceeded with caution. The lab was dark and highly developed, far from what any of them expected to find under a humble graveyard. There were many doors leading in many directions and they hardly knew where to start. Eventually, they were faced with three doors and no sense of direction. Maxwell employed a very particular spell that allowed him to speak to objects. Each door told him, "I open, I close; mine is the way" to 'truth, that which you seek' and (something else I've forgotten) respectively. Boanna decided to scout ahead, using her invisibility and incorporeality to investigate each room before opening the doors. She found only more labs and, surprisingly, a security system that could actually detect her presence and fired lasers at her. The group decided to regroup and charge through, disarming the lasers, only to discover halls full of labs, each containing countless tubes containing undead and, surprisingly, dinosaur creatures. Upon their entrance, the specimens awoke and attacked them. All of the dinosaurs and zombies contained biological and mechanical components, from robot-t-rexes to 'zombie lieutenants' with chainsaws for arms. During this fight, Maxwell decided to take a vacation to the 'ice cream dimension,' - only to fail to return until the (next day?), Sevlok having fried a good number of its delectably innocent inhabitants. Carrion punched the heads off of the lieutenants and stole the name-plates from their uniforms. Selene was almost fatally wounded by a robo-raptor, and Arnos seemed to sniff something strange about her blood that the others failed to notice. Boanna had been blasting her fear-bolts at the dinosaurs- she even managed to have one of them relive the day the meteor caused its species's extinction, over and over, until it too died. While all of this was happening, Angus had taken on the T-rex. Shouting a string of Scottish-flavored insults at it, he triumphantly cleaved its head from its body like a lumberjack felling an ancient oak. He swore to mount the head on his cabin wall later. They continued to peruse the underground lab and found their way to a factory-like room where a number of zombie workers were producing an assembly line of chemicals. They began to incapacitate the zombies without mercy, but upon further inspection learned that they were not 'true' zombies at all but living humans being compelled into mindlessness by the very serum the lab was manufacturing. Shocked by the knowledge that they had been killing living people ''again, Evine contained the workers in a magic barrier until they fell unconscious and the group explored deeper into the necropolitic lair. They found an office-type room in which they could hear a shuffling of papers, and Blank Page teleported invisibly in to investigate. Failing to stay quiet she alerted the attention of Lily, who was throwing papers angrily around, saying how she was promised some information that the necrocologist failed to give her. She said she didn't care to help him anymore, and then pulled an ID card from ''somewhere ''on her person that would allow the group to continue exploring the facility. Lily ''poofed '' away, but the group stayed to browse the files and papers. There were some labelled 'success' and some labeled 'failure,' and Page's ability to talk to books allowed her to gauge their importance. They didn't have much to say besides 'I am a success story,' and tear-stained pages on the part of the failures. One paper indicated that the doctor had been selling zombies to a 'Code Name: 'Pink Skull,' for 'recreational use.' Unable to learn anything pertinent to their situation, the group continued on. Finally, they found the dastardly foe which they sought. Dr. Nikolai Nezhizen was discovered to be waiting in the innermost lab holding a hand-cannon full of syringes. When his son tried to talk him down, Nezhizen only smugly replied that 'if he would not join him, he would have to enslave him.' He summoned Mungo (who was now under his control) to defend him while he fired rounds of his unholy serum at the heroes, all the while laughing manically beyind a force barrier. In one mighty bound, Angus leaped atop the shield- giving Nezhizen a fine view- and began to chip away at it with his axe. Arnos and Carrion attempted to distract Mungo while Alexi and Selene focused on disrupting the radio signal. Arnos made illusive copies of himself, all of which were reduced to dust by Mungo's massive fists. Boanna crept beyond Nezhizen's defenses and blasted him with magic; the barriers came down, landing Angus and the others on top of him. They managed to free Mungo, but struggled to capture Nezhizen as he continued to shoot at them from the ground with his deadly darts. Finally, Alexi knocked him out and the battle was over- but before they could regroup themselves and take him into custody, he had already disappeared. The battle won and the lab sufficiently dismantled, the new super-group exited the graveyard together. Alexi wanted to take his 'brother' somewhere safe, prompting Evine to offer them asylum in Avalon, her Fey city. Instead they jumped off together into the unknown whilst our heroes parted ways into the night, having made many new friends and enemies in their first day as a team. Category:Story